When the first two cohorts of College Fellows convened together for the first time to continue preparing the new undergraduate curriculum to be piloted this fall, they got to brainstorm with and receive feedback from prominent academic leaders who helped guide similar efforts at five other elite universities and colleges.

“Comedy allows us to talk about really hard things,” said Katelyn Hale Wood, an assistant professor of theater studies who joined the University of Virginia’s Department of Drama this fall. She’s teaching “Performing Race and Citizenship in 21st Century USA” this semester, as well as courses on theater history and modern drama, and “Comedy and Protest” next fall.

In addition to leading master classes and meeting with M.F.A. and undergraduate prose writers, MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Díaz will give a reading and two talks during his residency.

The University of Virginia’s new multidisciplinary Brain Institute, established last spring, already has begun establishing the University as a national and state hub for basic and clinical brain research and education, and as a treatment center for brain diseases and disorders.

The talk show host shared a lot of laughs – and one very generous surprise – with Bradford Manning (COM '07) and Bryan Manning (COL '13), who founded a clothing company to raise money for blindness research.